Rose Zhang implodes in St. Andrews pot bunker, plummets down Open leaderboard

If you’ve had the good fortune of playing the Old Course at St. Andrews, you probably know how it feels to have the bad fortune of finding one of its legendary pot bunkers.

Fortunately for you, your torture in and out of the sandy, sod-walled beasts affected only your score and the surface of your memories — not your paycheck in one of the biggest weeks of your year.

The second of these outcomes is what befell young star Rose Zhang on Friday morning at the AIG Women’s Open. It happened on the 2nd hole, with Zhang even par for the tournament and facing a greenside bunker shot after landing her approach against the lip of a nasty pot bunker.

Zhang lined up with her clubface open, needing to get up and down to save par. She was trying for the kind of start-and-stop shot that goes high enough off the clubface to clear the lip, but travels a short enough distance to land (and stop) on the putting surface. Instead, though, she learned a painful Old Course lesson: Just because you can clear the bunker doesn’t mean you will.

Zhang’s first bunker shot from a steep angle tumbled straight into the edge of the bunker and back down. It was a bad outcome, to be sure, but now she faced a better angle out of a slightly shallower lip. She sunk her shoes in for a second shot and caught it just a hair heavy, watching as the ball blasted back into the lip of the bunker, this time plunking her in the side before returning to her feet.

Finally, on her third try, Zhang took her medicine, blasting out of the bunker sideways and giving herself a more reasonable approach into the green from back on terra firma. Only this time, Rose’s shot came out thin (understandable!), skittering down the fairway nearly 100 yards from the bunker in which she stood.

With her sixth shot, Zhang finally found the putting surface, leaving herself an easy two-putt for a scorecard-wrecking quadruple-bogey 8, pushing her to four over for the tournament, 12 shots off the lead set by Nelly Korda. It was a bad blow-up hole, made worse by a double-bogey on the par-5 5th — and also a reminder of one of St. Andrews’ cruel truths.

The easier it looks, the harder it plays.